On October 15, 2026, the second qualifying round of the open team artificial intelligence championship UST AI Challenge 2026 was held at the SEI “Ukrainian State University of Chemical Technology” of USUST.

On this day, eight teams of lyceum students from Dnipro gathered at the USUCT SEI. They had been invited to participate by lecturers and staff responsible for career guidance at the institute’s departments, so the second round continued the systematic cooperation between the USUCT SEI and the city’s secondary education institutions.

The competition was attended by teams from Dnipro Lyceum No. 136 “Synerhos”, Dnipro Lyceum No. 122, Dnipro Lyceum No. 97, Dnipro Lyceum No. 36, Educational Complex No. 66 of the Dnipro City Council, Dnipro Lyceum No. 100 “Leader”, Dnipro Lyceum No. 138, and Dnipro Lyceum No. 91.

The second round was opened by the Director of the USUCT SEI, Doctor of Chemical Sciences, Professor Olha Sverdlikovska. She emphasized that team competitions give young people an opportunity to work together, test their own ideas, and master modern artificial intelligence tools.

Oleksii Brychkovskyi, Doctor of Philosophy and Assistant Lecturer at the Department of Information Systems, served as the host and moderator of the round at the USUCT SEI.

The projects were evaluated by lecturers and researchers of the USUCT SEI representing various scientific fields:

• Valeriia Pavlova, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Chemistry, Assistant Lecturer at the Department of Biotechnology and Life Safety, Chair of the USUCT SEI Council of Young Scientists — Chair of the Jury;
• Anna Hura, Associate Professor at the Department of Processes, Apparatuses, and General Chemical Technology, Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Food and Chemical Technologies;
• Oleh Kalinichenko, Associate Professor at the Department of Fuel, Polymer, and Printing Materials Technologies;
• Maryna Ivanova, Associate Professor at the Department of Economics and Law;
• Volodymyr Anisimov, Associate Professor at the Department of Information Systems.

The teams were mentored by students Meriam Muradova (group 4-BT-57), Svitlana Porubova (group 6-LZ-43), Iryna Zaiets (group 4-IvMEN-76), Maksym Lapika and Nadiia Hankova (group 2-KN-25), Marharyta Smielova (group 4-BMI-51), Yuliia Karpova (group 3-TZh-15), and Dmytro Zimenkov, a postgraduate student at the Department of Energy.

For the students, this was an opportunity to gain experience in mentoring and organizing teamwork, while for the lyceum students, it was an excellent opportunity not only to complete the competition task but also to communicate with students from various specialties and get to know the university better.

A distinctive feature of the second round was the wide range of topics covered by the tasks, which were directly related to the educational and research fields of the USUCT SEI: biomedical engineering, pharmacy, biotechnology, chemistry, chemical and food technologies, economics, ecology, and energy.

The teams had one hour to analyze the problem they received, select appropriate artificial intelligence tools, find a solution, and prepare a presentation. The lyceum students worked with ChatGPT, Claude, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and Perplexity, used Gamma for presentations, and some teams created web pages and interactive materials using HTML. An important part of the work was not simply obtaining an answer from AI, but verifying the information, comparing the results, and substantiating their own solution.

The winner of the second round was the team “Synergy of Discourse” from Dnipro Lyceum No. 136 “Synerhos” with the project “How Can AI Help Make Economic Decisions for the Reconstruction of Regions?” The lyceum students explored how artificial intelligence can help analyze costs, compare reconstruction scenarios, and assess the economic feasibility of rebuilding facilities. All jury members highly evaluated the study of this highly relevant problem.

Thus, the team “Synergy of Discourse” became the second finalist of UST AI Challenge 2026 and will meet the winners of the other qualifying rounds at the Championship Grand Final on December 24.

The remaining teams also received special awards for prompt engineering, innovation, critical thinking, social impact, communication, and vision for the future. Their projects focused on distance learning, water quality monitoring, energy independence, the characteristics of crops, biomaterials, and modern medical technologies.

The second round of UST AI Challenge was not only a platform for an artificial intelligence competition for the USUCT SEI, but also another format for interaction between the university and high school students. Lecturers, researchers, students, and postgraduate students of the institute all took part in organizing the event, while the tasks gave the lyceum students an opportunity to see how digital tools can be applied across different scientific disciplines and professional fields.

We thank all the participants and organizers for this wonderful event!

More details about all the teams, projects, special awards, and upcoming stages of UST AI Challenge 2026 are available in the full article on the official USUST website.